Murder of indigenous activist Green Nobel winner Berta Caceres

Environmental activist, Green Nobel winner Berta Caceres killed http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/environmental-activist-green-nobel-winner-berta-caceres-killed/news-story/8399e153bdf91f483868c9e9d63e6dac AFP MARCH 5, 2016 TEGUCIGALPA: Honduran indigenous activist Berta Caceres, an award-winning environmentalist, has been shot and killed in her home, her family labelling her death an assassination.

Ms Caceres won the 2015 Goldman Prize, the world’s top award for grassroots environmental activism, for leading the indigenous Lenca people in a struggle against a hydro-electric dam project that would flood native lands and cut off water supplies to hundreds.

Her mother, Berta Flores, said yesterday police had indicated her daughter was killed in a robbery, “but we all know it was because of her struggle”.

The 43-year-old mother of four, who had received death threats for her activism, was shot dead in the early hours of Thursday at her home in the western town of La Esperanza.

In awarding her the prize, the Goldman organisation commended her for carrying on her campaign despite the threats, writing: “Her murder would not surprise her colleagues, who keep a eulogy — but hope to never have to use it. “Despite these risks, she maintains a public presence in order to continue her work”.

President Juan Orlando Hernandez called the killing “a crime against Honduras” and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice, and secretary-general of the Organisation of American States Luis Almagro condemned the crime as “horrific.”

As Ms Caceres’s body lay in a hall at a union headquarters in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa yesterday, supporters outside shouted, “Berta is alive, the fight goes on”. About 3000 students blocked a road elsewhere in Tegucigalpa before police dispersed them with tear gas.

Security Minister Julian Pacheco said a security guard at the complex where Ms Caceres lived and another suspect who was wounded had been arrested.

Ms Caceres had won a ruling by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granting her special security measures. Police formerly provided her with an around-the-clock guard, but switched to an occasional security detail at her request, Mr Pacheco said. But the Centre for Justice and International Law denied that Ms Caceres had turned down bodyguards and accused the government of providing “deficient” security.

Mr Pacheco said Ms Caceres had spent the night away from the home that was registered with the authorities. Fellow activists said she had moved to a safe house, fearing for her life. Gustavo Castro, a Mexican activist who was with Ms Caceres at the time of the attack, was grazed with a bullet.

Labor leader Carlos Reyes joined Ms Caceres’s mother in insisting that she was not just another victim of violent crime.“The information from the police is that attackers broke into her home from the back and shot her twice, but we all know it’s a lie, that they killed her because of her struggle,” he said. “It’s a political crime by the government.”

Ms Flores said her daughter had recently had a “very big altercation” with soldiers and representatives of a hydro-electric company during a visit to the Gualcarque River.

Ms Caceres founded the Civic Council of Indigenous and People’s Organisations in 1993 with her then husband Salvador Zuniga. She was best known for her battle to save the Gualcarque River, which earned her the Goldman Prize — dubbed the “Green Nobel” — last year.

On accepting the prize, Ms Caceres linked her environmentalism to her indigenous roots.“In our cosmic vision we are beings born of the Earth, the water and the maize plant. We are the ancestral custodians of the rivers,” she said.